


Asterisk

by Leonawriter



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Gasterblaster AU, Gen, POV Second Person, Spoilers - No Mercy Route, True Ending Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-04
Updated: 2015-12-04
Packaged: 2018-05-04 23:17:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5352086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leonawriter/pseuds/Leonawriter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At the end of the last timeline, a great and terrible monster looms down upon a man who is not meant to exist, filled with fury, and you follow the sound of destruction - and the words that had lain hidden in the silence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Asterisk

_It could have been worse._

_To be truthful, it could always have been worse._

Words scattered letter by letter and sound by sound into the depths of time and timelines. Every so often, someone would hear a part of the whole, an echo of what had once been said by someone else in another time, but altered, distorted, twisted, reshaped.

That was such as what happened, with words that were not meant to have been spoken.

_I have seen them all._

_Even in the blackness of the void, I have been there._

Every so often, you thought that you could hear them. You would listen, and wait, and repeat things over and over in your head until you would begin to wonder if the thoughts in your head were even yours, and if they were, if you had begun to remember wrongly.

Sometimes, the echo flowers said new things when you listened very, very closely, things that were only spoken when no one had said a single word but the silence.

_The utter destruction of all matter._

_All that matters._

Perhaps they were merely glitches in the way that the world worked, you thought at first. It did happen, sometimes. You would walk along, you would blink, and you would be several paces further than you should be. The wind would howl, and you would hear your name being called.

_But in this moment..._

You were tired, however, of repeating. You enjoyed things so much, when you could do them over and over again, but everything had its limits. You were tired. You ache so much, sometimes, and you remember where you have died, and where you could have fallen and never got up.

You think, though, that it is the better times where you laughed that you miss the most, times that cannot be repeated without bittersweet nostalgia intruding in on the perfection of a moment trapped in time.

_...I am forced to wonder._

So you decided to stop.

And it is - it's a decision. A decision is made, and formed, and finished. It could be taken back, but you feel like that would be unlikely. You know danger now. It is almost like a friend, an old friend that keeps you company, and you know that nothing can take away what is precious to you other than you yourself. 

_If this is the price-_

You work your way through. From beginning to end. Laughter and tears. You face it all head on, racing forward and hesitating at the same time. This is, after all, the last time you will ever do these things, perform these actions. You know it.

Knowing that makes them more important, somehow. Almost even more so than when you first made them. You have to make sure this is absolutely perfect, this time, because this is the time that everyone will remember forever.

 _-is it worth_ -

You had always followed Toriel off the mountain, with her hand to guide you should you fall (again). 

You had always laughed as you saw the others rush off.

You had always taken one last look back at the mountain, and understood that this would not be the last time you saw the inside, not be the last time you saw those rooms.

You had always helped Toriel find somewhere to stay, and stayed long enough for her to smile at the sunlight coming in through the window of the house on the surface as the grass grew and the flowers bloomed and the children laughed and the smell of butterscotch-cinnamon pie wafted through the halls.

You had stayed until that point, and you had remembered, and you had always had the feeling that you had  _missed something_ , and something, always something, had always driven you to _go_   _back_.

_-everything that you did not need-_

This time, you make it halfway down the mountain.

The feeling hits you sooner, that feeling of something  _forgotten_. Your knees lock, and Toriel asks if you are all right. You don't know what to say, for not the first time.

Something is wrong.

It is the feeling that had made you reset so many times, and yet you had decided. And you were determined not to break that decision. 

A decision is a promise you make to yourself, after all. And perhaps now you understand why Sans says he does not easily make promises.

_-to give up?_

You ask Toriel to help you back up. She asks you why - she wants to know why you would prefer to go back rather than go forward.

You tell her that you aren't going back. You'd just - forgotten something. 

Something in her expression must tell her that it isn't a trivial matter, because soft, big hands are lifting you up, and placing you at the ledge you had just climbed down from. 

She is coming, too. You feel relieved. It's nice to know that you aren't alone.

_Then again, perhaps that is not the correct question._

_Since one must ask the right questions in order to obtain the correct answers_.

You do not remember all of the timelines, and the fact that you know that you do not always serves to discomfort you. You feel like you should know what happened. What you did. 

What is the point of resetting and making mistakes if you never remember them in order to learn from them?

This is one of the reasons you realised that the decision had to be made. Not remembering made you feel like the others. The ones who you could choose to not remember anything. Because of you having done something that had taken something vast away from them. 

The hall with the yellow sunlight which was, for the first time in your memory, going dark... it had always sent a shiver down your spine.

_Perhaps what should be said is not even a question at all._

A roar splits the air, and you stop.

It is not like the stop that happened on the mountaintop, where you were caught between movements, between moving in one direction and another.

Here, the stop is telling you something, and you are scared of what it will say if you listen too hard, because the things that have said things to you in the silence before have scared you, and you don't know that you want to hear it.

You aren't sure that you want to know the truth.

You stay too long in one place, and the sounds coalesce, catching up with each other and with you and  _there_ and  _there_ and  _there_ and you begin to understand.

You have heard this before.

_Perhaps it is something that is sought. Words often are. They are not the tools of logic as numbers are. Words hide and run as though they are living, with meanings beneath and above them._

_Perhaps that is it._

There it is again. The reverberations cause you to try to cover your ears, but you lose your balance and you would have fallen down had Toriel not been there to catch you. 

You have gone past fear now.

You wouldn't have believed it were possible, before your first foray into the underground where the monsters lived. You would have believed that the place beyond fear is where you lie, still, and pretend that you are not there and you wait for everything to be over. You would never have dreamed that the place beyond fear could be action.

You are filled with determination.

You begin to run. 

Toriel calls after you, and you shake your head, following the sound and rumble of what you know you are following, but does not make sense.

A blast of pure power comes down upon you, and you wonder where it is that your body learned to reflexively dodge so fast out of the way, because you can't remember.

You don't know if you want to.

_Words that should have been said a long time ago._

But it is not aimed at you. 

Deep in your soul, a part of you that remembers whispers that this does not make sense, and you shiver, something tickling the hairs on the back of your neck, something forgotten, something lost.

You look at the source, at the beast, tall enough to have shattered arches and the tops of doorways, strong enough to have bulldozed through with no problem, barely recognisable as one they knew so well.

Another blast, and in the silence that followed, you could just about make out the sound of crashing as some monster's roof fell to the street below.

A gasp, from behind, and you know that Toriel has followed you this far, as well, and suddenly you aren't so sure that you are happier with her being here, and not safely outside with everyone else.

She shouldn't be seeing this.

You, you shouldn't be seeing this.

There are no blasters, skulls larger than Sans' own, hanging in the air, suspended by magic. There are none there. You looked, before, when you first felt that familiarity.

There is only the one, horned and sharp-toothed and attached to a neck that was attached to a spin and rib cage that was attached to legs and clawed feet and a tail that swung first one way, then the other way, wreaking destructive potential in its path.

In that moment, you can see timelines. Moments and echoes. You see yourself skewered, you see yourself incinerated by a blast, a point from which you cannot come back from, you see Toriel trying to save you and you see nothing good in any of them.

Your breath stops. You waver. 

"I'm sorry," you hear a voice say. 

You have never heard that voice before, and it catches you off guard. It sounds strange, scratchy around the edges, muted in some parts, sharp in others. It makes your head feel fuzzy.

You feel as though you are forgetting something.

( _A door which does not lead anywhere can still be a door. A door that leads someplace new, can also be known as a gateway._

_You test it out._

_You want to know all of the secrets._

_What is the fun of there being things that are unknown when you are unable to pry them loose?_

_You do not remember, though._

_You do, however, still know._

_The knowledge is a part of you even when memories fade and get forgotten along with the sounds that silence_ _brings on the wind.)_

"I'm sorry," you hear again. You realise that this is not the first, or the second, or the third time that you have heard it.

And again. And again. Another would have come, but it is instead interrupted by another explosion of sound. Except that this one did not come with the expected blast, either to the area or to one of the few gathered there.

You think you begin to understand, while at the same time you begin to realise how little you know of the world. Repeating the same actions only gives you that much information. You don't know everything. 

You inch forward. Toriel calls for you, but you are, once more, determined.

You make your way slowly. Just because you are moving does not mean you are not scared. Just because you know who this is, does not mean this is not dangerous.

 _"Sans_ ," you say in a rush, and it's all coming out, and you wonder when you started to cry because there are tears streaking down your face and you don't care, because that great monstrous head is turning, no longer glaring down at the figure gazing up at it from the ground, robed in black with eye sockets wide and confused and concerned.

You aren't scared any more. You are terrified. 

_(Death comes for you many times, shaped as many things, and later on you will forget it all, because it is safer to do so than to remember._

_Death comes by enemy, and that is easy to deal with, because you expect an enemy to want to kill you._

_Death comes by accident, and that is seen as a mistake, because that is all mistakes are, and they are to be learned from, but are also easily forgotten._

_Death comes by friend, and you know as intimately as your own heartbeat the sensation of fire and bone and gravity and magic and spears and explosions._

_You know it well._

_You have faced it and looked it in the eye._

_You have repaid it in full._

_Paid in advance._

_Your tab is clean and cleared.)_

You hear a sharp intake of breath, you hear something soft against the floor. Toriel. You wish she didn't know. But you can't take this back, and you can't pretend it hasn't happened. 

No more.

"Sans, what have I  _done_ to you?"

A part of you remembers, even when the details aren't clear, even when nothing quite makes sense. Even when you don't know why you're saying these words.

The head swings from one figure to the other. First to you, then to the skeletal form blanketed in darkness, and then back again.

Toriel is asking what is going on, and the head swings over to her now, too.

The voice that sounds like static feedback sounds a little less strange, as though the pause has soothed their throat, but their heart is still sore.

"Sans, I am sorry. There is nothing I would not do to take back what has been done. Yet it is over. It is  _over_."

Your heart is in your mouth, and you realise that this was never your fight to begin with.

"Sans.... I know that you would never forget me."

A single, skeletal hand reached up. For a moment, you believe that it will be eviscerated when you hear a buildup of power in the growl that is let out.

"You have every reason to resent me. I had almost forgotten what 'existing' meant. To be truly alive."

Skeletal haunches raised, the bifurcated jaw opening-

"But I am here now."

No one dared speak. Seconds pass by and each is more precious than the last.

Then, there is a change. Minuscule at first, then more noticeable, as movement builds up. Harder to spot than on a body made of nothing but bones, lacking skin, tendons, muscles. 

Downward motion.

Easily mistaken for an attack.

But you know attacks, and attacks don't happen when claws reach forward like that, when they're on the floor instead of ready to slash and rip and tear, and you know that you aren't in danger any more when the head, blue flame of magic that had been lighting it up dying down to a single glowing light now matching the more normal one in the other eye socket, rests itself on forelimbs. 

A huff comes out of the nostrils, first once, then twice. 

The sound that comes afterward is not so much a roar of anger and pain as it is a keen of hurt and loss.

The hand that had been stretched out is now patting ( _clack, clack)_ at the skull two or three times their size, which could fit several of you inside.

You look over at the owner of that hand, and you remember his name.

"Things... we can never go back to how we were, can we? Gaster?"

The old Royal Scientist shakes his head.

The answer does not need to be said. You think that you all know the same thing. All four of you.

Even if you could go back, you don't think you would want to. You're different, now. Perhaps, though, it isn't all bad. 

This is your happy ending. And you have nothing but stubborn determination to make it that. You've earned it. You've shaped it and formed it. Perhaps it isn't perfect, but it's yours.

...

AN: I had this idea after seeing  _so much_  done for a Gaster who was abusive/manipulative/etc., who had experimented on Sans and even Papyrus, but I'd kept my ideas of the Gasterblaster Sans having been created from... well, basically a fusion of the magic used to create the Gaster Blasters themselves (or to bring them into being) and the buildup of Determination that Sans is filled with each time there's a route that ends with him fighting you.

This fic happened in my head at seeing an artwork where Gaster is in the shadow of Gasterblaster Sans, holding out his hands, with wingdings that read '...Sans. I know you would never forget me.' - which is where the idea of putting that line in the fic came from! Plus, the thought of having a Gaster who had  _instigated_ the potential of Gasterblaster Sans, without having taken anything away from the idea of 'cinnamon roll sad scientist Dadster/third skelebro'.


End file.
